Ever After (The Hollows #11)(131)
Author: Kim Harrison

"Um . . ." I started, then jumped when the silver bell hanging suspended above the fireplace made a single beautiful peal of sound.

Trent looked up, startled, and then we both flung ourselves backward from the heavy burst of burnt-amber-tainted air that exploded on the hearth. I gasped as Al popped into the room. Shrinking backward, I pulled my legs up onto the chair. Trent had stood, shoving his chair back nearly three feet as the demon in his crushed green velvet coat all but rolled into the fire, arms and legs askew.

"Al!" I shouted when he came to a grunting halt. Then I cried, "Al!" in a panic. "You’re on fire!"

His sleeve flaming, he sat up, blinking from behind his blue-tinted glasses sitting halfway off his face. "Oh, look at that," he slurred as he set a black bottle down to pat at his arm. "I am on fire."

"Get him out of here, Rachel," Trent said in a bad temper as he stood to the side, his expression lost in the shadows. "This is intolerable."

I winced, glancing at Al when he began to giggle at the flames he was making dance on his fingertips. "I’m sorry," I said as I unfolded myself from the chair, really meaning it. "There’s no reason for him to show up." I turned to Al. "Al, you need to leave. Now."

But the damage had already been done. And it wasn’t like I had a say in the matter.

"Don’t want to go . . ." the demon slurred as he took a swig from the bottle and scooted to lean against the rock next to the firebox, his knees pulled up and his head thrown back. "I heard you tap a line, and I came for a visit. It’s so quiet. There’s no one about, no parties, no one to flay, to torture." He blinked, as if seeing the ceiling for the first time. "Where am I?"

I glanced at Trent now moving quietly through the room, gathering things up and shoving them into drawers. The candle at the shrine was out. "Oh my God," I said, peering closer at Al. "You’re drunk!"

Trent shoved a tiny window open in anger, and Al raised his bottle in salute. "No, I’m not," he protested. Then . . . "Wait, I am. Yes. I am drunk. You have no idea how hard it was to get to this mar-r-rvelous state of disconnection." Wavering, he looked past me to an open cupboard. "Oh, look, there’s more."

As I watched helplessly, Al staggered upright, stumbling to a rack holding six bottles of white wine I hadn’t noticed before. At a loss, I turned back to Trent, immediately seeing his ears.

"This is elf wine!" Al announced loudly, and Trent frowned. "Oh, Rachel, this stuff is toxic. Knock you on your ass. Where are we?"

"Somewhere you shouldn’t be," I said, frustrated. Trent had opened up to me, showed me something important and fragile to him, and I go and bring Al into it. That it was an accident didn’t mean anything. My gut hurt, and seeing my scrying mirror, I scooped it up and held it up to Trent so he could see himself.

Trent frowned at his red-tinted reflection. Then his eyes went wide and he grabbed the mirror from me, holding it closer, tilting his head to see. In the corner, Al began to laugh uproariously, the bottle of elf wine lighter than when he had taken it. "She gave you your ears back, little elf!" he said, and I cringed. The night had started out so nice, too.

"I’m sorry," I said, miserable. "I thought that your ears were changed at the cellular level, genetically stunted. I didn’t know they had been surgically altered."

"Pointy ears. Pointy-eared devil," Al said as Trent held the mirror with one hand and felt his ear with the other. "This is good," he added, squinting at the bottle. "Ha! It’s your label."

I couldn’t tell what Trent was thinking, and I cringed when he finally met my eyes. "I can change them back . . ."

"No, this is fine." He took a last look, then handed the mirror to me. "Um . . . I like it."

He was lying, and I hunched miserably into myself. From the corner, Al said, "Want me to cut them for you?"

"No!" Trent exclaimed, then shifted on his feet nervously. "This is good," he said as if trying to convince himself. "Ray and Lucy have natural ears. It’s fitting that I do, too."

"You sure?"

He looked a little ill, but he was smiling. "Yes, I’m sure. Thank you."

One foot cocked behind the other, Al leaned heavily on the counter and belched. "At least your hair will stop falling into your eyes with those huge wings of yours."

I stiffened. "They are not huge," I said crossly. "Trent, don’t listen to him. They’re just right. Seriously, I can fix them," I said, reaching to touch them.

Trent’s hand on my wrist stopped me. "I like them," he said, and I froze. Letting go, he retreated to his chair, sitting down and unlacing his dress shoe.

"What are you doing now?" Al questioned, listing heavily as he tucked another one of those bottles under his arm and staggered for the cot half hidden behind a curtain. "Seeing if your circumcision is gone? It is."

My expression went blank, and Trent hesitated, a silk sock in his hand as he felt the underside of his big toe. He looked at me, and I put a hand to my mouth, face flaming. "Oh. My. God. Trent. I’m sorry." Crap on toast, could I screw this up any more?

"Um," Trent said, clearly at a loss.

"Call me tomorrow," Al said seriously, pointing at him with a bottle as he reclined on the cot. "I’ve got a curse that will take care of that."

"Ah, I had a scar on my big toe," Trent said, his thoughts clearly scattered. "It rubbed sometimes." He put his sock back on, the firelight making the creases in his forehead obvious.

"Unless you like the snake in a turtleneck look," Al said, and I hung my head and massaged my temples. "Ceri did. But she was earthy in her desires. Delightful little animal she was."

Al went suddenly still, his breath rattling as if he was in pain. Ceri. Suddenly I understood. That was why he was drunk. But it didn’t excuse Al’s presence. "I’m so sorry," I whispered, mortified. "I didn’t think-"

"She called it my purse of delight," Al was saying to the ceiling, flopped back on the cot until only his legs showed beyond the curtain, one foot on the cot, the other draped down onto the floor. A little sob came from him. "I should have freed her. I should have freed her . . ."

Trent had turned away, his steps long as he strode to the wine rack. "Rachel, have you tried my family label?" he asked, almost frantic as he searched for a corkscrew. "It’s fairly palatable for having been grown at this latitude. My father shoved a few more genes into a species or two for better sugar production." Hands shaking, he poured white wine into a glass, downing it in one go. If I didn’t know him better, I would say he was babbling.